Baby

[Lauraleigh15]

Hi I have a 8week old..and straight after feeding she gets irritable and bring a lot of milk back up..I've tried her on different milk and breast milk and has the same outcome..need advice as I want to help my baby

Might be reflux. Have you tried keeping her upright for a little while after a feed?

Yes I have as she settles better like that

The first thing to do is behavioural changes and to keep them more upright or don't move them all all after a feed. Just moving my daughter from the feeding to upright position was enough to trigger my daughters reflux and for her to get upset and reflux. We had to hold her in the feeding position for half an hour to minimise her reflux. I also found she was better if I did lying down feeds so I had the travel cot mattress under the sofa so I could fed her lying on the living room floor. Leaning back positions can help as it slows the flow down and slows their feeding which can reduce the air and reflux. It might be worth getting a tongue tie and latch assessments as they can cause more air to be taken in and that can have an impact on reflux

After that the first line of treatment is a thickner. We had gaviscon which was helpful which made her constipated and we had to get a prescription of lactulose too after spending 6 weeks trying to find a beneficial amount that didn't block her up

After that it is ppi medication which are omperazole or lansoprazole. These are weight dependent so you need to keep up with weigh ins and get the dose adjusted approximately every 1+kg gained whilst they are small. Most babies start to out grow their reflux after 6 months so at this point you might find that they don't need the dose adjusting as they need less of the omperazole to manage their reflux so the dose from when they were smaller is still sufficient.

After that there are other options but require paediatricians and are only necessary in the minority of cases. My daughter has stubborn reflux that has required a lot of different treatments.

If you have tried medication and other things and still have issues you might want to consider cmpa as that often goes hand in hand with reflux but first feeding position and assessments then think about a thicker or omperazole treatments.